Anger Detox

Strong Medicine for a Case of Mood Poisoning

Other Workshops & Therapy Groups

Positive Parenting Class

Positive Parenting is a combination of support group and skills class that provides specific information and tailored techniques for parenting pre-school aged children, latency-aged children (ages 6-12), and adolescents. Each group has its own distinctive character. During the group sessions we discuss the most common issues that arise across ethnic and socioeconomic groups, i.e. parenting roles, problematic parenting styles, and techniques to enhance parenting. We also discuss issues related to
Single Parents,
Blended Families,
LGBT Families,
Grandparents Raising, and Children with Persistent Illnesses.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is the gold-standard treatment approach for a wide variety of psychological symptoms. DBT combines the basic strategies of Behavior Therapy with eastern mindfulness practices
to treat individuals who struggle with extremely intense emotions, mood swings, and impulsivity. This group is ideal for individuals who are psychologically minded, and have had some previous experience in therapy, but are looking for more advanced training and skills... often to cope with mood disorders, eating disorders, and intense issues of emotional regulation. During our weekly sessions we will teach, model, and role play skills from each of the four DBT skills training modules, which include:

Mindfulness:
to improve awareness, increase capacity to derive pleasure in the moment, reduce emotional distress associated with living in the past, and increase capacity to control one’s own mind.

Emotional Regulation:
aimed at reducing vulnerability to negative emotions by identifying, describing, and understanding them, as well as building positive experiences, mastery, and learning to let go, thus increasing capacity to experience joy and pleasure.

One of the most important outcomes of psychotherapy, is the creation of a coherent personal narrative. While this has been known and practiced for some time, Journal Therapy is a relatively new therapeutic approach to accomplishing this goal. In this therapy group, Journaling becomes a way for both client and therapist to fill in the gaps of a life story, and find a way to understand and explain how one thing may have led to another, and what important learning can be taken from each major experience. As one journals, a biographical narrative will emerge, and one will have the opportunity to examine whether their long-held beliefs about their own personal story are indeed accurate, or helpful. Journaling becomes an instrument of interpretation and a description of the writer’s experiences. The weekly sessions are facilitated by therapists trained to facilitate a deeper understanding of the salient issues in an individual's life, and improved understanding of these issues. The increased understandings of intrapersonal and interpersonal tensions often allows a decrease in psychological suffering, as well as providing a roadmap to future goals and healing. The creation of a coherent personal narrative is a fundamental element of mental health that also helps individuals recover from shame and guilt, deepen their sense of self, and personal confidence. Participants need not be concerned about having an ability to write well or to write artfully, as creative and artistic expression is not the primary goal of this practice, though some may find it to be a byproduct.

Cinema Therapy is a method of psychological exploration and analysis that uses the emotions elicited after viewing carefully selected movies & clips. The goal is to transform problematic affective themes into new understanding. The themes in movies are metaphoric and these metaphors can be used to examine our own personal themes and metaphors -- specifically those related to problematic coping mechanisms. Such understanding and analysis helps participants learn and adopt new coping and problem solving strategies, in an engaging way.

A weekly skills & support group for caretakers & family members of people struggling with disease or mental illness. This group offers participants support for their specific needs, plus topics such as: Handling Anger, Resentment & Frustration, Self-Care for Those Who Care for Others, What You Can & Can't Do, Coping Tools & Techniques, Building Better Communication Skills, Developing Empathy: For Yourself, and more.